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International News

How Elon Musk faced `reputation risk’ successfully

It’s a remarkable turnaround from the dark days of 2018, when Tesla struggled to ramp up production of the Model 3 sedan, scores of executives quit and Musk was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over his infamous “go private” tweet.
This year’s share rally has made the California company the world’s most valuable automaker, with a market value of roughly $267 billion as of Friday’s close.

And then there’s Musk himself. The 49-year-old South African immigrant, who is a Los Angeles-based celebrity as much as a Silicon Valley CEO, is now the 10th richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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Anxious WHO implores world to ‘do it all’ in long war on COVID-19

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and WHO emergencies head Mike Ryan exhorted nations to rigorously enforce health measures such as mask-wearing, social distancing, hand-washing and testing.
“There are concerns that we may not have a vaccine that may work, or its protection could be for just a few months, not more. But until we finish the clinical trials, we will not know,” he said

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AstraZeneca to be exempt from coronavirus vaccine liability claims in most countries

With 25 companies testing their vaccine candidates on humans and getting ready to immunize hundred millions of people once the products are shown to work, the question of who pays for any claims for damages in case of side effects has been a tricky point in supply negotiations.“This is a unique situation where we as a company simply cannot take the risk if in … four years the vaccine is showing side effects,” Ruud Dobber, a member of Astra’s senior executive team, told Reuters.

“In the contracts we have in place, we are asking for indemnification. For most countries it is acceptable to take that risk on their shoulders because it is in their national interest,” he said, adding that Astra and regulators were making safety and tolerability a top priority.

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Australia’s Victoria declares disaster, sets curfew to curb COVID-19

“The current rules have avoided thousands and thousands of cases each day, and then thousands of people in hospital and many more tragedies than we have seen. But it is not working fast enough,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told a televised briefing.

A curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. every day will be implemented from Sunday evening in Melbourne, barring the nearly five million people in the city from leaving their houses except for work or to receive or give care.

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Siemens Healthineers expands into cancer care with $16.4 billion deal for Varian

Through the deal to buy Varian, Healthineers, a part of Siemens, acquires the leader in radiation therapy with a market share of over 50%.

Healthineers highlighted a long-term rise in the incidence of cancer – from 14 million cases worldwide in 2010 to a forecast 25 million in 2030.

That translates into an addressable market of $20 billion that is forecast to grow at an annual rate of between 6% and 10%, the company said in a presentation on the deal.

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Latin America coronavirus death toll surges past 200,000

Apart from the United States, Brazil and Mexico have racked up more fatalities from the virus than any other country, and together they account for around 70% of the regional death toll.Both have struggled to balance the need to curb the spread of the virus with restrictive safety measures while trying to reopen their economies, which have been battered by the crisis.

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U.S.makes deal for 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccine, deaths expected to rise

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Friday forecast between 168,000 and 182,000 total fatalities by August 22, predicting that deaths will rise fastest in Alabama, Kentucky, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, Tennessee and Washington state.
Coronavirus deaths in the United States are rising at their fastest rate since early June. Roughly one American died about every minute from COVID-19 on Wednesday.

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